Sorry, I’ll start again. You won’t know yet what I’m on about.
When did I first start to panic? Well that was long before this. Really almost as soon as I saw the Princess Ironel.
She came walking along the stone porch, with her black liquorice cane tapping on the ground. Her hands were white claws.
She wasn’t beautiful like Jizania, and Ironel had all her hair, partly black still, or iron-coloured, and pulled back off her mask-like face into a towering top-knot stuck with silver pins.
As she approached, Nemian and all the others kneeled down. Not one knee either, both knees.
And the slaves were flat, all but her slaves, who presently kneeled and bowed their heads.
But I stood upright, there on the boat-ship. Why? In a way, I was frightened of tearing the dress if I kneeled. (It seemed very flimsy material.) Or getting it dirty. I mean, it couldn’t be mine. They’d provided it, this lot. (Just as maids had been dressed by the House.)
I did bow my head. But that was shame more than anything else.
And why was I ashamed? Second sight, maybe, like Argul’s mum.
Sort of cricking my neck, I saw Ironel Novendot raise Nemian and embrace him. It was a stiff and a cold embrace. It was as if one of the towers did it. But he seemed awfully happy. He kissed her claws.
‘You found her,’ she said.
‘Madam, I did.’
‘What is her name?’ I heard the old voice rasp. (Me?)
‘Claidissa Star.’ (Me.)
‘Yes,’ said Ironel Novendot. ‘That is correct.’
The hairs rose on my scalp under all the curls and coilings. What did she mean? He’d found me? She knew me?
Then the appalling slaves on the boat were help-thrusting me up the stairs on to the bank and into the porch, and I was right in front of her.
‘You are welcome to the City,’ said the old woman. She spoke – as he had – as if only this City existed, capital C. Like the capital H of the House. All lies, as now I knew. ‘We are very glad you’ve come,’ she added. ‘I, certainly.’
She. She didn’t look it. Her eyes, jet black with grey rings round the black. Awful eyes. But she did look like Jizania, in a way. Was it just her age? No – and anyway, how old was she?
‘We will go in now,’ she told us.
An order.
Everyone got up, simpering.
She turned back to me, sudden as something springing, and caught my face in a bunch of claws.
‘Do you speak?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘Good.’ She smiled. Ah. Her teeth were false. They were wonderful. Pearls set in silver. She must save that smile for very special moments. (She does.)
First of all, the slaves let us into a hollow in the wall, and closed a gilded gate. Then they worked a handle inside and the whole thing, hollow, gate, us, went rocking upwards. Walls shut us in on all sides. I didn’t like it. But I recalled Nemian telling me about clockwork ‘lifters’ which could carry people to the top storeys of his City.
Just as I thought I’d go mad and scream, we reached another open hollow. To my horror, we went right up past it.
There were some more of these. When I’d given up hope, we came to a hollow and stopped. More slaves outside opened the gate.
Outside was a colossal hall. It seemed to go on for ever on every side, and the ceiling too was high as a sky, or looked like it. It was painted like a sky too, only the paint had faded. Unless they did it that way in the first place, grey, with grape-dark clouds. (Probably they did.)
On the deep grey marble expanse of floor were spindly tables with things to eat and drink, tobacco, and open boxes of strange stalks and tablets. These were like the things Nemian had given me instead of food in the dust desert. I couldn’t see why they would be necessary here.
Nemian though took a handful of them, and ate them. Then he took some wine from a slave. So did I, the wine, although I didn’t want it.
The old woman took only a glass of something that looked like muddy pond water, sucked it, and pulled a face like a kid who’d been given burnt spinach when it wanted an ice-cream.
But she clasped Nemian’s arm. As they walked along the long, long floor away from the crowd – who all watched admiringly and went on simpering – she called, ‘You, too, Claidissa.’
So I, too, went with them.
There were vast windows stretching floor to ceiling. They had glass in them, and eventually we stood at one, looking out over the City. (There was also something nasty bulging over the window top, twice my height again, over my head. Took me a while to realize it was one black paw of the evil wolf statue on the roof, curled down over the window. What a place!)
The City looked vile too. How could he be proud of it? Homesick for it?
Rain boiled among the stupid, too-high buildings. The depressing statues lurched and craned. Everything black or grey or like sour milk. Absolute rubbish.
I’d been vaguely wondering if there were any outer walls to guard it. (I’ve since learned there aren’t. Instead they have look-outs and other things, like Peshamba, but more ‘serious’.) But right then I thought just one look at this place would make anyone, friend or foe, turn round and trudge off in another direction. Any direction.
Nemian and his Gran had been murmuring things to each other. Not exactly loving, but sort of secretive and sneaky, somehow. They both had a sly, smug look. It didn’t suit either of them. He didn’t look so handsome. His face seemed to have changed. And glancing at me abruptly he laughed. It was a cruel laugh. One couldn’t miss it. It was a laugh of heartless triumph.
I didn’t want to make a judgement. I’d done a lot of that and been proved wrong. I
